Philosophical hermeneutics and critical theory are two major currents of contemporary thought that have not ceased to be in direct opposition. The first, coming from Hans-Georg Gadamer, refuses any critical posture in the name of our fundamental belonging to the traditions of meaning. The second, coming notably from Jürgen Habermas, justifies the moral and political imperative of criticism because of distortions in work and power relations. The objective of this chapter is to overcome this antagonism by opening the way to a critical hermeneutics. A critical hermeneutics is possible if one refuses the existence of a disembodied reason while claiming the requirement of both internal and external criticism of established values, in the name of regulatory ideals oriented towards the emancipation of human societies. A critical hermeneutic is necessary if we are to account, in the ordinary anthropological sphere, for both spontaneous understanding and mutual understanding devices, which themselves rely on a pre-understood background of meaning, and for interpretive techniques that can take a distance from received and transmitted meanings, including “polyphonic” modalities, which provide alternatives to dominant standards, as “hermeneutic resistances.” In the epistemological sphere, a critical hermeneutic is necessary if we are to recognize both the fundamental historicity of scientific knowledge and the possibility of thresholds of distanciation (historical distance, methodological objectification, etc.). In the ethico-political sphere, a critical hermeneutic is necessary if we are to reject the existence of a disembodied reason, while at the same time asserting the need for both an internal and external critique of instituted values, in the name of regulative ideals oriented towards the emancipation of human societies.